Bitter jul

The latest work from Pedro Almodóvar is his most nakedly self-reflective since Pain and Glory: an autofiction that makes the act of creation its very subject, asking what an artist owes to the people whose lives he turns into art. Shot in his customary sensual palette, scored by Alberto Iglesias and led by Bárbara Lennie and Leonardo Sbaraglia, it takes its title and its aching heart from the Chavela Vargas song of the same name.